Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 408: The first modern Chinese medicine critic, Yu Yunxiu, the three wastes of Chinese medicine

Old Deng, after hearing this, sucked his teeth and said:
"Tsk...that's not right!"

"Your grandfather had several students at that time, and they are all in the capital now."

"For example, I know that his eldest disciple Qi Yong is the director of the pediatric department at Yanjing Hospital, which is directly under the Ministry of Health."

"There is also Lin Yongsheng, who is also the director of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine at Jishuitan Hospital."

"Your family didn't contact me?"

Fangyan shook his head:
"As far as I know, there shouldn't be any in my family."

“This is the first time I’ve heard the names of these two people.”

Old Dengtou said:
"Then I guess he's in contact with your uncle and the others, right?"

Fang Yan thought about it and felt that the probability was not high. He shrugged and said:

"maybe."

Old Deng continued to ask:
"He Xiu is your grandpa, right?"

Dialects are funny:

"What are you talking about? Of course he is my dear grandfather."

Old Deng said to him:
"Since he is your grandpa, why didn't he leave some inheritance for you, the younger generation? Your grandpa, the He family, has been practicing Chinese medicine for several generations, and they have taught so many apprentices, so why didn't they leave their inheritance for you?"

Fangyan shook his head:
"He died suddenly, and none of my uncles inherited his legacy."

"My mother studied Western medicine, and at most she read a few Chinese medicine books as an introduction when she was a child."

"I was born in 1955. When my grandpa passed away, I was only two years old."

"I learned my medical skills by myself in my early years, then I learned from my master Lu Donghua, and then I learned some bits and pieces from several seniors in the medical field."

"My grandfather was an expert in pediatrics, but I have never seen a single medical case."

Hearing this, Old Deng looked thoughtful.

Then he shook his head and said:
"What a pity. He left in such a hurry that he didn't leave any explanation."

"But you are not bad now. I'm sure his spirit in heaven will be very pleased."

After hearing this, Fangyan bowed to the old man.

After this casual chat, Fang Yan looked at the time and found that it was already twelve o'clock. He took off his white coat and said goodbye to everyone in the store. He also specifically reminded Mr. Deng to be careful on the way home, and then rode his bike towards home.

I just chatted with Old Deng about the dispute between Chinese and Western medicine, which made Fangyan feel quite emotional.

Actually, when it comes to the word "argument", I feel that the word used in dialect is not accurate.

To be precise, traditional Chinese medicine has never launched an attack.

It's all passive defense.

Some people really want to get rid of traditional Chinese medicine as soon as possible.

Among them, we have to mention Yu Yunxiu, who has proposed abolishing traditional Chinese medicine many times in modern times.

When I was in college, every time the old professor mentioned this person, he would feel mixed emotions.

Therefore, Fangyan has a very deep impression of this person's life.

He was just an ordinary person at the beginning, but in 1898, when he was years old, Yu Yunxiu was admitted to Suzhou Prefecture School. After he came into contact with Western medicine for the first time, things started to change for the better.

At that time, there was a teacher in Suzhou Prefecture School who had returned from studying in Japan. He often introduced the development of medicine in Japan to students like them, which made Yu Yunxiu develop a strong liking for Western medicine.

In 1905, Yu Yunxiu got the opportunity to study in Japan at public expense. He first studied at the Japan Sports Association, then entered the Tokyo Physical School and studied again. In 1908, he entered Osaka Medical University and began to study Western medicine systematically. During this period, he found that Western medicine did have significant advantages in surgery and disinfection, but was not as good as traditional Chinese medicine in treating some chronic diseases.

After graduating and returning to China, he opened a clinic in Shanghai in 1916 and began to use a combination of Chinese and Western medicine to treat patients. In practice, he gradually discovered that it was quite difficult to combine the two medical systems.

A year later, in 1917, Yu Yunxiu published his famous Chinese medicine critique "Lingsu Shangdui", in which he began to criticize in detail many topics in the Chinese medicine classic "Huangdi Neijing" based on the Western medical knowledge at that time.

It includes Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, the five internal organs, the physiology of the internal organs, the twelve meridians, the meridians and collaterals, observation, auscultation, questioning and palpation, pathogens, and lesions.

He proposed that Chinese medicine originated from witchcraft and equated Chinese medicine with witchcraft. He believed that the concepts of the heavenly stems and earthly branches, seasons, colors and flavors, meridians and internal organs were pure fantasy and not sufficient to form the basis of precise academic research. He also made a profound refutation of the Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory in medicine.

They also use the viewpoints of Western anatomy and physiology to prove that the theories in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine are nothing but far-fetched and absurd, pointing out that this book is nothing but the imagination of a layman.

Then in this book, he proposed the idea of ​​abolishing medicine and keeping drugs for the first time and criticized traditional Chinese medicine, even saying:
"If we don't destroy the Yellow Emperor's Canon of Internal Medicine, we will not be able to eliminate the root of evil"

“Traditional Chinese Medicine is the main culprit for murder”

"If traditional Chinese medicine is not eradicated, it will not only hinder the prosperity of the nation and the improvement of people's livelihood, but will also be detrimental to the improvement of our international status."

His harsh words show how much he hates traditional Chinese medicine.

As soon as this book appeared, it caused a huge response in the medical community. Some people praised him for his courage to face the problems of traditional Chinese medicine, while others accused him of denying traditional Chinese medicine culture.

Yun Tieqiao, a famous Chinese medicine scientist at that time, wrote a special article in his book "Records of Wisdom from Various Classics" to criticize Yu Yunxiu's views.

Professor Wang Yuchuan's teacher, Lu Yuanlei, was not to be outdone and confronted him head-on in the newspaper.

This time, Yu Yunxiu began to emerge on the anti-traditional Chinese medicine front.

Because he didn't have enough influence, the matter was declared bankrupt.

Then he seemed to change his temper.

In 1925, Yu Yunxiu was invited to attend the Far East Tropical Diseases Conference.

At the meeting, he used actual cases to demonstrate that traditional Chinese medicine has unique advantages in the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases.

He pointed out that the records of scrofula and tuberculosis in the Tang Dynasty medical book Cui Shi Bie Lu were more than a thousand years earlier than Western medicine. This view aroused great interest among the experts present. At this time, he seemed to have re-recognized traditional Chinese medicine.

However, in the same year, China's education community held meetings in Changsha and Taiyuan, passed relevant resolutions, and decided to incorporate traditional Chinese medicine into the school system.

When the matter was submitted to the Ministry of Education for approval, Yu Yunxiu suddenly emerged and, together with many others, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Education, expressing firm resistance.

At that time, the Ministry of Education used this as an excuse to flatly reject the request to include traditional Chinese medicine in the university discipline system.

The years of efforts of the traditional Chinese medicine community came to nothing. Since then, the relationship between the Chinese and Western medical communities has rapidly deteriorated, and the two major camps have gradually become hostile.

What really made him well-known to the public was a conference a few years later.

The first Central Health Committee meeting was held in the 18th year of the Republic of China. Before the meeting, Yu Yunxiu drafted the "Proposal to Abolish Traditional Medicine to Remove Obstacles to Health Care."

Yu Yunxiu clearly defined the reasons, principles and specific methods for abolishing traditional Chinese medicine. He believed that traditional Chinese medicine had no status in health administration and should be abolished immediately.

He cited four reasons for abolishing it, and Yu concluded that "As long as the old medicine is not eliminated, the people's thinking will not change, the new medicine will not develop, and the health administration will not progress."

This issue was discussed at the conference. Except for the Deputy Minister of Medical Layman and two counselors who were skeptical, the rest of the people in the room unanimously passed it.

It is worth mentioning that there was no Chinese medicine practitioner attending this meeting.

Then, on February 2, the Shanghai "News" first made the matter public. A few days later, the "Social Medical Journal" edited by Yu Yunxiu published a special issue of the Central Health Commission to announce it.

This case shocked all circles.

At that time, Chinese medicine practitioners across the country were in an uproar and were outraged.

Countless traditional Chinese medicine families from both the north and south, and many doctors from traditional Chinese medicine clinics, took to the streets to protest or sat in front of newspaper offices.

Famous Chinese medicine practitioners and people from all walks of life have begun to speak out for Chinese medicine in newspapers.

The traditional Chinese medicine community began to publish notices and telegrams in Shanghai's Xinwen Bao, Shenbao, and Shishi Xinbao to announce the convening of a national medical group conference in Shanghai.

These newspapers also published editorials one after another, followed the developments of the protest rallies in the traditional Chinese medicine community, and provided public support.

With the support and response of the public opinion, various protest rallies held by the traditional Chinese medicine community and documents opposing the abolition of traditional Chinese medicine were published in major newspapers and periodicals, forming a massive public opinion offensive.

At that time, there was no consensus within the Nationalist government on whether to retain or abolish traditional Chinese medicine.

Among them, some politicians represented by Wang Jingwei and Chu Minyi advocated the abolition of traditional Chinese medicine, while Kuomintang politicians such as Tan Yankai, Yu Youren, Lin Sen, Chen Guofu, and Jiao Yintang advocated the preservation of traditional Chinese medicine.

The nationwide protests launched by the traditional Chinese medicine community attracted the attention of the entire society and also affected social stability and government prestige. The Nanjing National Government, which had just unified the country, was unwilling to cause major social unrest because of some insignificant incidents.

Plus, there are so many people supporting the traditional Chinese medicine community.

Therefore, when the traditional Chinese medicine community launched a large-scale protest, out of consideration for the stability of the government's rule, most Kuomintang politicians publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the Western medicine community's use of the Central Health Conference to abolish the traditional Chinese medicine case.

At this point, it was natural that the case to abolish traditional Chinese medicine ended in failure.

To celebrate this victory, March 1929 was designated as "China's National Medicine Day" starting in 3.

The state established a national medical clinic and a branch was set up in WH City.

For the second time, Yu Yunxiu's plan was stillborn.

After this incident, Yu Yunxiu stopped his work again and began to devote himself to the reform of education combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine. He compiled a series of new textbooks. He advocated retaining the essence of traditional Chinese medicine while absorbing the scientific methods of Western medicine.

During this period, he trained a group of students who were indoctrinated by his ideas.

Then came the third, and most famous, one.

In August 1950, the first National Health Conference was grandly held in Zhongshan Hall in the capital.

On the morning of the third day of the meeting, it was Yu Yunxiu's turn to speak. Standing on the podium, the 72-year-old man once again proposed a motion to abolish traditional Chinese medicine in front of health workers across the country.

The whole audience was shocked again for a moment.

He elaborated on three reasons: first, TCM theory lacks scientific basis, and the theory of yin and yang and the five elements is feudal superstition; second, TCM education lacks norms, and the master-apprentice inheritance model is backward; third, TCM diagnostic methods are highly subjective, making it difficult to form unified standards.

As soon as this statement was made, it caused an uproar at the conference venue, and some Western doctors expressed their agreement on the spot.

Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners were outraged, recalling the "glorious history" of this man twice before. They really didn't expect that after so many years, he would come out and repeat the same old tune again.

However, He Cheng and Wang Bin, who were then vice ministers of the Ministry of Health, expressed support for Yu Yunxiu's proposal.

During the discussion, He Cheng pointed out that the Soviet medical system fully adopted Western medicine and achieved remarkable results.

Wang Bin then proposed to refer to the Soviet model and gradually eliminate the old medicine.

The Ministry of Health subsequently accepted Yu Yunxiu's ideas and stipulated that Chinese medicine practitioners must pass Western medicine examinations before they can practice.

At this point, Yu Yunxiu was almost successful.

However, Deng Tietao later took the lead in issuing a statement to fight back.

The others followed suit and the momentum rose again.

The news soon reached the teacher's ears.

After learning the news, he immediately convened a meeting to discuss the matter.

It was then clearly pointed out that traditional Chinese medicine is a traditional cultural heritage and should not be underestimated.

For example, during the war years when antibiotics were extremely scarce at the Yan'an Central Hospital, traditional Chinese medicine played an important role in the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.

On the same day, Deputy Ministers He and Wang were dismissed from their posts.

Yu Yunxiu's third plan to abolish traditional Chinese medicine failed again.

(End of this chapter)